Product Description

AV Proyectos 070 Dossier Kengo Kuma

Dossier Kengo Kuma, Nine Projects. Stone, ceramic, glass, wood, bamboo, metal… a large repertoire of materials, always related to the place, allow Kengo Kuma (Yokohama, 1954) to trace an architecture that is bare and essential, contemporary and at the same time closely tied to tradition. The latest projects of his studio – established in 1990 and with offices in Tokyo and Paris –, maintain the intimate character and the sophisticated and subtle language of the early works, designed almost three decades ago. They also preserve the desire to create atmospheres where the boundaries between interior and exterior are blurred. The nine projects included here take stock of the current work of the Japanese architect.

Guggenheim Museum Helsinki Competition. In 2014 and for the first time the Guggenheim Foundation called an open competition to design one of its museums. The new building, to go up in the South Harbor of Helsinki, will have an area of 12,000 square meters, 4,000 of which for exhibition purposes. Among the 1,715 proposals from 77 different countries, the jury of eleven members, presided by Mark Wigley and including the Spaniard Juan Herreros, shortlisted six projects. After a public exhibition of the finalists, the jury chose as win- ning design – awarded with 100,000 euros – the project titled ‘Art in the City,’ submitted by the Paris-based team of the Japanese Hiroko Kusunoki and the French Nicolas Moreau.

País Pandereta, ETSAM with Honors País Pandereta analyzes the real estate bubble in Spain through a detailed study of the residential developments that emerged after the urban action programs (Programas de Actuación Urbanística or PAU), undertaken in Madrid in the years before the housing market crisis, and proposes intervening in these spaces through the creation of the so-called raverbenas, events that emerge from a combination of Madrid’s typical street festivals and the usual themes associated to rave parties in Europe. Carlos D. Monedero earned a magna cum laude distinction for his graduation project at the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM), which he presented this past month of May.

Canary Wharf Crossrail, in Detail. Foster + Partners. To improve traffic conditions in the city, in 2007 London approved Crossrail, the largest infrastructure project in Europe, comprising 40 stations and 42 kilometers of new tunnels connecting London from east to west. Norman Foster was commissioned to design one of the nine new stations included in the project, Canary Wharf, close to the station of the same name and also designed by his office in 1990. The 310-meter-long roof, made of wood and ETFE cushions, arches 30 meters over the park and unifies the four levels of retail, pavilions, station entrances, and the roof garden, which is already open to the public. Train services will begin to operate in 2018.

Suso33, One Line. Moving between graffiti, wall art, video art, performance and other expressions of urban art, the work of Suso33 (Madrid, 1973) reivindicates public space as the center of artistic life and as the essential milieu for communication between artist and audience. Well-known in the street art scene as the creator in the 1980s of the plastas – paint stains that have become iconic in Spanish urban culture – since 1984 he has developed an intense activity, with interventions in over 50 cities, among which London, New York or Shanghai, and over 70 shows. The latest is a retrospective exhibition, the first one up to now, organized by the CEART of Fuenlabrada, in Madrid.

Manuel Álvarez Diestro, Dystopia. The work of Manuel Álvarez Diestro (Santander, 1972) proposes meditating on the place that man occupies on earth, and reflects the disastrous consequences of human activity, but also the beauty underlying the transformed landscapes. Diestro has carried out photographic series showing the density in Hong Kong, the traces of war in Beirut, and the dead-end roads of Oman. Though currently based in London, the photographer lived four years in Egypt, where he witnessed the growth of new urban developments. The New Cairo series is devoted to the huge satellite city that is being built outside Cairo, and stages the conquest of the desert by these new constructions.